by J E Worthen

Know Thy Enemy

Know thy enemy, as Obama has opened the doors to the influx of Islam into America. And Jihad is a part of Islam, and History from the Ottoman Period is now repeating itself. First from Wiki then other Link on Ottman Period, following is at the end.

From Wikipedia: (Our involvment in the Ottoman period when Jefferson was President.)

The First Barbary War (1801–1805) also known as the Tripolitan War or the Barbary Coast War, was the first of two warsfought between the United States and the Northwest African Berber Muslim states known collectively as the Barbary States. These were the Ottoman provinces of Tripoli, Algiers, and Tunis, which were enjoying a large autonomy, as well as the independent Sultanate of Morocco. The war was fought because U.S. President Thomas Jefferson refused to pay the high tributes demanded by the Barbary states and because they were seizing American merchant ships and enslaving the crews for high ransoms. It was the first declared war the United States fought on foreign land and seas.
Obama can learn a lot about how we should be dealing with Islamic extremists from Thomas Jefferson.

From Downtrend:

In 1786, Jefferson and John Adams met with Tripoli’s ambassador to Great Britain. They asked this ‘diplomat’ by what right his nation attacked American ships and enslaved her citizens and why the Muslims held such hostility toward this new nation, with which neither Tripoli nor any of the other Barbary Coast nations had any previous contact. The answer was quite revealing. Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja (the ambassador) replied that Islam:

“Was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Qur’an, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman (Muslim) who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.

That is indeed quite revealing. Yet, America continued paying ransoms to these terrorists for the next fifteen years or so. Until Jefferson became President. Then, the Pasha (leader) of Tripoli sent a demand to the new leader for an immediate payment of $225,000 and $25,000 per year on an ongoing basis. Jefferson flatly refused, leading the Pasha to cut down the flagpole of the American consulate and declaring war on the United States. The rest of the terrorist states followed suit.

“The Ottoman Empire

It was an empire inspired and sustained by Islam, and Islamic institutions.

It replaced the Byzantine Empire as the major power in the Eastern Mediterranean.

The Ottoman Empire reached its height under Suleiman the Magnificent (reigned 1520-66), when it expanded to cover the Balkans and Hungary, and reached the gates of Vienna.

The Empire began to decline after being defeated at the Battle of Lepanto (1571) and losing almost its entire navy. It declined further during the next centuries, and was effectively finished off by the First World War and the Balkan Wars.

One legacy of the Islamic Ottoman Empire is the robustsecularism of modern Turkey.

At its peak it included:

Turkey

Egypt

Greece

Bulgaria

Romania

Macedonia

Hungary

Palestine

Jordan

Lebanon

Syria

Parts of Arabia

Much of the coastal strip of North Africa

Why was the Empire successful?

The recipe for success

There were many reasons why the Ottoman Empire was so successful:

Highly centralised

Power was always transferred to a single person, and not split between rival princes

The Ottoman Empire was successfully ruled by a single family for 7 centuries.

State-run education system

Religion was incorporated in the state structure, and the Sultan was regarded as “the protector of Islam”.

State-run judicial system

Ruthless in dealing with local leaders

Promotion to positions of power largely depended on merit

Created alliances across political and racial groups

United by Islamic ideology

United by Islamic warrior code with ideal of increasing Muslim territory through Jihad

United by Islamic organisational and administrative structures

Highly pragmatic, taking the best ideas from other cultures and making them their own

Encouraged loyalty from other faith groups

Private power and wealth were controlled

Very strong military

Strong slave-based army

Expert in developing gunpowder as a military tool

Military ethos pervaded whole administration

Origin

After Baghdad fell to the Mongols, the Seljuks declared an independent Sultanate in east and central Asia Minor.

In 1301, Uthman, an Uzbek of the Ottoman clan, overthrew the Seljuk aristocracy and proclaimed himself the Sultan of Asia Minor.

Rule of force

At first the rule of the Ottoman Sultans was insecure. To consolidate their Empire the Ottoman Sultans formed groups of fanatical fighters – the orders of the Janissaries, a crack infantry group of slaves and Christianconverts to Islam.

The Ottomans inflicted a series of defeats on the declining Christian Byzantine Empire and then quickly expanded westward.

Constantinople

Constantinople was the heart of the Byzantine Empire. It became the capital of the Ottoman Empire when it was conquered in 1453 by the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II.

Sultan Suleymaniye Mosque, Istanbul, Turkey Mehmet slaughtered many of the population and forced the rest into exile, later repopulating the city by importing people from elsewhere in Ottoman territory.

Mehmet renamed Constantinople Istanbul – the ‘city of Islam’ – and set about rebuilding it, both physically and politically, as his capital.

Economics

Istanbul became not only a political and military capital, but because of its position at the junction of Europe, Africa, and Asia, one of the great trade centres of the world. Another important city was Bursa, which was a centre of the silk trade.

Some of the later Ottoman conquests were clearly intended to give them control of other trade routes.

Among the goods traded were:

Silk and other cloth

Musk

Rhubarb

Porcelain from China

Spices such as pepper

Dyestuffs such as indigo

The economic strength of the Empire also owed much to Mehmet’s policy of increasing the number of traders and artisans in the Empire.

He first encouraged merchants to move to Istanbul, and later forcibly resettled merchants from captured territories such as Caffa.

He also encouraged Jewish traders from Europe to migrate to Istanbul and set up in business there. Later rulers continued these policies.

The siege of Constantinople

When Sultan Mehmet II rode into the city of Constantinople on a white horse in 1453, it marked the end of a thousand years of the Byzantine Empire. Earlier attempts to capture the city had largely failed – so why did the Ottomans succeed this time? What effect did the fall of Constantinople have on the rest of the Christian world?

Roger Crowley, author and historian; Judith Herrin, Professor of Late Antique and Byzantine Studies at King’s College London; and Colin Imber, formerly Reader in Turkish at Manchester University discuss these questions.

Effects of the fall of Constantinople

The capture of Constantinople ended the Byzantine Empire after 1100 years. The effect of this on Christian Europe was enormous.

One unexpected effect was that many scholars fled from the new empire and went to Italy, where they were influential in sparking off the Renaissance, and increasing trade with the east.

Although the Pope demanded a crusade to recapture Istanbul from the Muslims, the Christian nations failed to produce an army for him, and no attempt to retake the city was made.

The Muslim dominance of the trading centre of the former Constantinople increased the pressure on Western nations to find new ways to the East by going westwards. This eventually led to the expeditions of Columbus, Magellan, and Drake.”